Business partners: no longer a company's poor stepchild, human resources departments can help senior executives boost the bottom line.

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Business partners: no longer a company's poor stepchild, human resources departments can help senior executives boost the bottom line.

Once upon a time in corporate America, human resources departments were often considered the poor relations of a business, the last to be hired and, more often than not, the first to be cut loose during downtimes.

But nowadays, HR is increasingly becoming the Rx for up-and-coming companies, as well as those on top that want to stay healthy, according to several human resources professionals.

"Our focus is on making the company a good place to work," said Bill Sailer, vice president and in-house general counsel at Qualcomm Inc., who advises the company's HR department. "The theory is: If it's a great place to work, people will work hard and identify with the goals of the organization. Good things happen as a result of that....

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